The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916. CONSTANTINE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 218, 25 October 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1916. CONSTANTINE.

rWitb which is incorporated The Tai hape Post and Wahnarino News.)

What is ultimately to become of King Constantine of Greece is a problem that must be solved in the very near future. Things are happening fast and important events follow eacn other with alarming rapidity. Truly, huge forces are doing little more than waiting at Salonika to press Bulgariawards to relieve the strain that is felt in Roumania, but while Constantine refuses to move his army from their rear a forward movement is likely to be delayed that may entail disaster somewhere. A race with reinforcements has resulted in the enemy favour; Mackcnsen has his Turks, which enables him to renew his Dobrudja campaign, and he has made the most of the time at his disposal, having driven the Russo-Roumanians a consid erable distance and gained possession of Constanza, a most important town on the Black Sea coast. News comes that Russia is sending several divisions to the Dobrudja, but little importance is attachable until indications make it evident they have arrived there. In Gx*eece there are now two Governments; one is growing in strength at the rate of a hundred or two per day, and, of course, the other must be dwindling to a similar extent. German efforts on Roumania is r tended to put new courage into Constantine and his followers. Germans have been sent to Mcnastir, replacing Bulgarians, to be near at hand as guarantee that Germany can yet send assistance to his devoted relative, am I it is not unlikely that if the Allies do not take possession of Constantine, he will eventually place himself at vr.e head of the few troops that have not melted from under him and link them up with Gomans that have been sent to Monastir to comfort and hearten

him. But Constantine has a new trouble; in addition to the Serbs hammering away at Monastir from the south and south-east, two hundred thousand Italians have appeared from the west, and this great Italian army may now be viewed with the Serbs on thesouth by the newly-arrived Huns in Monastir as a sort of impossible problem. Attack from the south might have been resisted for a considerable time, hut with two hundred thousand Italians, who have victoriously marched across Albania, on their right flank knocking at the back door, while Serbs and French pound away at the front, a very much larger defending army will be required than can be spared. In this connection it is interesting to follow Constantine’s manoeuvring; he may endeavour to hamper and delay operations here if he does nothing else, but it is more than probable that with threadbare patience General Sarrail is now keeping a very close watch on his movements. Germany has chosen to make a trlai of strength in the Balkans, as there is no shadow of doubt that failure to keep an open road to Bulgaria and Turkey means almost instant defeat. Deprived of food and oil from the only sources that are now available Germany could not carry on for very long. If there is still a hope of final victory in any German it would vanish with the loss of the Berlin-Constantinople railway communications. It is irritating to have this ninny, Constantine, n menace to the movements of hundreds of thousands of Allied troops, and, surely, no question of kingship is long going to delay the Allies from taking such definite action as will effectually blot out the whole annoying situation. It is very apparent that delay is dangerous, and may prove disastrous if long continued. There ought to be ample evidence that Constantine is an arch-liar, possessed of a cancerous cunning and cupidity that no ordinary treatment can cure, and he should be put with incurables just as soon as it is possible to turn lock and key on him. We all await—the world awaits —to know what is to be dene with Constantine. ’